Data from the National Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Collection is published annually. The ABS undertakes this work in collaboration with all states and territories, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

Collaboration between the ABS and jurisdictions on data development has produced substantial gains in the quality and comparability of ECEC data. As a result, the qualifier ‘experimental’ was removed from the latest release (reference year 2012). Greater accuracy in child enrolment and attendance figures has been achieved through clarifying the characteristics of preschool programs for inclusion in the collection. Refinement of worker profiles in the sector has also enabled greater precision in worker data.

The ABS will continue to assist jurisdictions to align their unit record level collections with agreed ECEC standards, and to explore opportunities for expanding collection coverage, particularly in the non-government and long day care sectors.

Ongoing development of the National ECEC Collection will also streamline its integration with the National Schools Statistics Collection (NSSC).

The most recent data was collected in August 2012 and released in March 2013.